


Our Black-Eyed Love Will Leave Me Bruised

by lonelywalker



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, College, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:45:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1253374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College student Will Graham's found the three things he wants most in life: great sex, a way to pay his tuition, and insight into the mind of a killer. It's just a little concerning that all three are coming from the same person - his enigmatic benefactor, Hannibal Lecter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Black-Eyed Love Will Leave Me Bruised

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Morten Harket's "Keep The Sun Away".

“I looked into those kinds of sites once,” Alana told him, laughing, the night she found out. “Pretty sweet deal, except you have to send some old lech your used underwear.”

Will would have killed to be one of those men who could shut people up with just one withering stare. “It’s not like that at all. The financial aid office gave me a whole heap of info about scholarships and grants. There are tons of these things: for minorities, for kids whose parents were veterans or coal miners... Dr. Lecter’s the chair of a foundation that gives grants to students from disadvantaged backgrounds who want to pursue careers in criminal psychology. That’s all.”

Alana looked up skeptically from her potato peeling. “Kind of a weirdly specific foundation, isn’t it? But good for you. Ask him if he has any friends who want to sponsor me – but only young, hot ones, okay?”

The financial aid story was true – he had the paperwork to prove it – but he’d known about the grant opportunity long before he’d applied. Even before the financial aid secretary had pointed him toward the daunting mountain of forms. It had come up in a strangely normal conversation in a strangely unconventional place, which made it all the more bizarre. The day afterward, when the entire thing still seemed like nothing more than a dream, Will had ended up on those sugar daddy websites himself. He wasn’t a lithe blonde with a perfect smile and lingerie to spare, but he wasn’t so self-deprecating to think that no one could possibly want more from him than straight-As and a contribution toward making the world a safer place.

The club was the sort of place that demanded membership and connections, although the annual fee was only what Will’s friends spent on beer in one month. A cute TA who liked him and was hoping for more had both paid the fee and got him in the door. It was somewhere he could hide when the library became too crowded. He could strip off and swim endlessly, alone with his thoughts, or find company easily in the sauna and locker room. It was the biggest ego boost he’d ever had, even when the men who touched his elbow or murmured something in his ear were nothing like his type.

Two months had gone by before he’d been the one to make the initial approach. Another man who spent more time in the pool than strutting around nude or in too-tight Speedos. An older man, in good shape, with immaculately-folded suits behind his locker door. Will had started out admiring the suits before it occurred to him to admire the body.

He’d cleared his throat nervously, the two of them alone, separated by a bench. “Do you…” The older man met his eyes, and Will cast his down toward the slight puddles that had formed between tiles on the floor. “I mean, if you’re not in a rush.”

The older man glanced at his watch. It shone an elegant silver under cheap lighting. “I believe I have some time to spare.”

Hannibal was from somewhere non-specific in Eastern Europe, his accent and name encouraging Will to reflect on those Roman and Greek bathhouses of ancient times as he settled on Hannibal’s lap, Hannibal filling him a little more deeply than was completely pleasurable. How many teenage boys in those baths had been taken in just the same way, a strong arm braced around their chests, a curiously soft hand working them beyond pleasures they could resist? Will could do nothing but lay his head back against Hannibal’s shoulder and reach down to feel the thick root of the cock that was fucking him, that would be coming inside him.

He’d felt dazed afterward, lying on the bed rather than swiftly dressing and leaving, as he had done on so many other occasions. Maybe a really good screw _should_ make you want to sleep, even if it was with a stranger, with the element of risk that gave everything a subtle thrill. By the time Hannibal was tying his shoelaces, Will was hard again. With a faintly disgusted look at the floor, Hannibal got down on his knees.

They’d gone for coffee later. Hannibal was a psychiatrist, but also the administrator of a family fortune that had in some way passed to him. “I have found myself to be more than comfortably provided for in life,” Hannibal had explained. “Yet I grew up in something of an impoverished state. It’s the least I can do to assist others in a field I view as having the utmost importance.”

Will had thought it over for a few days, as suspicious of the offer as Alana had been, but the fact Hannibal had insisted he _apply_ was reassuring. The man wasn’t showering him in money in return for sexual favors. Presumably other board members of this foundation would have to approve his application, after seeing his transcript and the many other papers Will needed to amass. It was an entirely legitimate affair. And his acceptance had come via an impressively-embossed letter.

Now… Now things were the same as they’d always been, except his bank had stopped sending him letters filled with red ink. With less time spent worrying and applying for part-time jobs, his studying became more committed, his grades better. And he focused even more intently on criminology, on forensics. Whenever Alana stopped by to check he was actually eating, she raised her eyebrows at the stack of journal articles with alarming titles. He’d so far refrained from tacking up crime scene photos on his bare dorm room walls. 

He’d worried about going back to the club now that Hannibal was essentially paying him on a monthly basis. Perhaps there really would be expectations… But probably the foundation funded several young men and women. It was just another business transaction. Probably there were tax advantages too. Will gave a college quarterback a handjob in the sauna. He let a guy with paint-spattered jeans fuck him up against a wall. On both occasions, he half-hoped Hannibal was watching.

“Will. Hello.” 

Will had been swimming alone, losing count of the laps while he thought through the class presentation he was due to give. All the textbook research and theories were there, he only needed to tie them together. But something was constantly distracting him, nagging at him. By the time he realized it was late, his limbs just about exhausted, and pulled himself out of the water, Hannibal was sitting there on the edge.

“Hi.” Will mopped water from his face. “You just got here?”

Hannibal took an extra moment before replying. “Yes. Evening appointments are very popular.”

“Right. Right. I can see that they would be.” The professional thing to do, the way to keep two worlds separate, would probably be to wish him a good swim and set off for the locker room. But that didn’t seem at all polite. “I’ve been meaning to thank you. For the grant.”

“Oh.” The look of surprise seemed genuine. “Yes, the grant. Well your application was very impressive. You’re precisely the type of student we hope to encourage.”

Politeness, though, only roused another awkward question: if he really wanted to reach out and cup the evident bulge in the slippery-smooth material of Hannibal’s trunks… Well that would be interpreted as another ‘thank you,’ wouldn’t it?

“Perhaps it _is_ a little late for swimming,” Hannibal said. Their feet dangled together in the water. “And there were a few points you raised in your application I’ve been meaning to discuss with you further. Have you eaten yet?”

Hannibal lived alone in a house that seemed designed to host dinner parties. The fastidious style was certainly a change from the dirty white walls and lurid drawings of student dorms, even if it made Will equally afraid to touch anything. He’d expected Hannibal to order in, or throw something in the microwave, but now that Hannibal had beckoned him into the kitchen, he wasn’t sure Hannibal even _owned_ a microwave.

“You omitted your hopes for your career path after graduation,” Hannibal said, pouring Will a tall glass of red wine before removing several items from his fridge. “Other than a very vague mention of ‘contributing to the field.’”

“I’d like to teach,” Will said. “Or, really, I’d like to talk. Discuss my ideas. It doesn’t matter much if there’s anyone there or not. In any case I want to go to graduate school and gather more experience before-”

Hannibal was examining a cut of meat so thin it was translucent. “Before?”

And this was why he’d been vague on the application. “I’ve thought about working for the FBI.” Which led most people to think he was just another gun-happy idiot, or that he’d watched too much _X-Files_ as a kid.

“A very admirable ambition.” Hannibal smiled for what was perhaps the first time in Will’s presence. Will took a gulp of wine. “I know I’d feel much safer with you keeping predators from my door.”

It was raining outside by the time they finished – both dinner and sex – which was enough of an excuse to accept Hannibal’s invitation and stay the night. 

“It’s getting more difficult at the club,” he said, watching the lights of passing cars play across the ceiling. “I spend all my time trying to get into these killers’ heads, and really I’m not sure I am trying anymore. I’m just there, even if I don’t want to be. I’m in _everyone’s_ head. I can’t even blow some anonymous guy, because he’s not anonymous anymore. I’m seeing myself through his eyes, the _world_ through his eyes.”

Hannibal laid a calming hand on his wrist. “Are you seeing yourself through my eyes, Will?”

Will didn’t flinch under the touch, but he studied the fingers in the dim light. More and more, lately, he’d been imagining himself in the role of the aggressor rather than the victim. He’d once walked home frightened about muggers and rapists, wrapping his jacket tightly around himself and moving quickly. Now he surveyed the other students he saw, and saw how to kill them too. 

“No,” he said, and made no move to pull away. “But I’d like to.”

Hannibal’s house was a quieter place to study than the club, and something about its atmosphere lent itself to the thought processes Will needed for his papers. Most nights, after a swim that was only a swim, he spread out his books and laptop and worked, listening to Hannibal work in the kitchen until they ate together and Hannibal took him to bed. After a while, given Hannibal’s appointments that frequently stretched into the late evening, Hannibal gave him a key.

“So you’re _living_ with him now?” Alana said over coffee the afternoon Will invited her to dinner at Chez Lecter.

“No…” It didn’t feel like that at all. It felt like staying over, where he was always careful to clean up everything, to venture no further than was necessary, to open no drawers or doors. He’d never even opened the fridge for a snack without receiving Hannibal’s explicit permission. “I study there and we talk. He’s an expert in the field.”

“And you’re sucking him off in return for his expertise. Oh and – I forgot – his money.”

Will sighed into his coffee mug. “So if I had one expert I was consulting, and a foundation paying my bills, _and_ a boyfriend, that would be fine, just as long as they were three different entities?”

“Uh, yeah. Just like the way you can have a boyfriend and a fourteen-year-old student as long as they’re not the same person. Or a nineteen-year-old student, when you’re paying his bills.”

“That’s not it at all.” Will set down the mug. “We have a connection. And I don’t mean something romantic. I mean… He inspires me. I’ve never been able to see my work so clearly. And as for the sex, well, I need to relax too. If I had an actual boyfriend it would be a waste of time.”

Alana frowned hard enough that he was clearly meant to note it. “Love and human connections aren’t a waste of time, Will. It’s not healthy to be this devoted to something. Next year you might decide you want a completely different career. And what happens if you ditch Dr. Lecter? If you fall out?”

“Then I’ll be back at the financial aid office, but that’s not going to happen.” Will poked his mug a few inches away across the table. “Hannibal wants to meet you.”

“You didn’t tell me he was into girls.”

Will gave her a half-smile. “You’re my best friend. He says you should come to dinner.”

He’d never cared much for food before meeting Hannibal. Not having the budget for it meant the less time and thought he devoted to it the better: ramen noodles, flavor packets, an egg or discount chicken breast for protein, an apple to keep the doctors away. The university had meal plans, but they’d worked out to be substantially more expensive than a near-starvation diet supplemented by whatever Alana fed him. He might not have put on any weight since he’d met Hannibal, but he’d started to pay attention to what he was eating now that it had flavor and texture. He’d never even had swordfish or eel or venison before. The most exotic dinners were ones he’d caught in rivers with lines and hooks. Now even Hannibal’s preparation process was mesmerizing.

“I’ve been thinking about trophies,” he said, book in his lap while Hannibal switched knives. He’d been allowed to sit on the free worksurface on the condition that he touched nothing else. 

“I suggest you enter the fifty-meter freestyle,” Hannibal said. “Your technique is very good.”

Will allowed himself a smile. “Serial killers are often drawn to them: a trinket, a finger, a tooth. It’s part of the way we identify patterns in the first place, and of course they’re invaluable when we actually have a suspect. It’s difficult to explain away a jewelry box full of body parts.”

Hannibal gestured without looking up. “I have a pantry full of body parts.”

“Ha-ha.”

“I wonder, Will, when did it become _we_ who identify such patterns?”

He glanced back down at his book, adjusting his glasses. “Well, the FBI does. Law enforcement does. But you want it to be _we_ , don’t you?”

“Of course. And I’m sure you’ll be much better at it than the current experts.”

Will nodded. “Aren’t some of those current experts the other students your foundation helped?”

“Yes and no.” Hannibal was busy arranging everything _just so_ on a tray. “I’m sad to say several of them have left the field. They turned out to be great disappointments.”

“I hope I won’t disappoint you.”

“I’m sure you never will.” Hannibal looked up again. “Now, what were you saying about trophies?”

Will cleared his throat and nudged up his glasses again. “That it’s difficult for me to understand the appeal. We’re all drawn to shiny things and to record our achievements, but I’d think twice about keeping my Little League pennants if it meant it was going to get me the death penalty.”

Hannibal turned and switched on the oven. “I believe the theory is that these people do not believe they will be caught.”

“Or that they want to be. It’s a lonely life, having an obsession and a skill, without being able to discuss it with anyone. Without anyone appreciating your work.”

“Very true,” Hannibal said. “Which is why I hate to eat alone.”

No one could fail to be impressed by Hannibal and his home, but it had made Will feel much, much too young at first, and even in her best dining-out clothes Alana seemed over-awed too. But surely having a friend with money and taste was better than spending time with the drunken slobs who seemed to comprise his classes. Alana might disapprove of their relationship on an ethical basis, but if he’d been sleeping with Bradley in 13C she would have already staged an intervention.

“And your interest is in psychiatry?” Hannibal asked. 

Alana nodded, swallowing her mouthful of – what had Hannibal said it was? – some kind of fish. “It’s a long road of study, I know, but it’s a fascinating field. And if it gets me a house anything like this, it’ll be worth it.”

Hannibal smiled. “I dislike shattering your illusions, Ms. Bloom, but I have been fortunate enough to receive a small inheritance from my family. Still, this is often far too large a space for a single man. Which is why I value my present company so highly.”

“You don’t have friends your own age?” Perhaps that was a little pointed, but then so was Alana.

Another smile and a slight, courteous dip of the head. “I do, of course. And many my senior. But fresh perspectives are just as valuable as experience. Perhaps even more so. A chef always desires to impress new connoisseurs.”

“Do you like her?” Will said later, in Hannibal’s bedroom. He was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, watching Hannibal undress with typical care and irritating lack of speed.

“She seems to be a very bright and insightful woman. I’m sure she’ll go far.”

“Yes, but do you _like_ her?”

He’d had much the same conversation while walking Alana to her beaten-up old car, which had probably already started to drive down neighborhood property prices. “He’s very eloquent,” Alana had said, picking her words almost as carefully as Hannibal did, “and the food was incredible. But I’m not sure I… I mean, do you really _trust_ him?”

Now Hannibal was hanging up his tie, brushing it down with a finger before turning his attentions back to Will. “I’m not so sure she likes me.” He sat with one knee slightly drawn up onto the bed and one hand in Will’s lap, touching, teasing. “Which may be wise.”

“Why would it be wise? You’re a wonderful friend.” He got hard so easily, with or without a touch. It was embarrassing how quickly he did, how quickly he came compared to Hannibal. But Hannibal never seemed to mind sucking him off a time or two before or after fucking him. Hannibal was stillness and patience incarnate.

But Hannibal rarely smiled with his eyes. “Do your studies ever make you doubt it? Serial killers and psychopaths aside, most murders are committed by friends and family members. Surely the best course to ensure physical safety is to adopt an existence of isolation and solitude.”

“That wouldn’t be much fun.” Will kissed him, their forearms rubbing as he reached for Hannibal’s fly.

“The club was a lot of fun,” Hannibal said. “Sexual release without names or attachments, and the membership changes so frequently. I often enjoyed myself with men who simply never returned, which I prefer to attribute to a crisis in sexuality than a comment on my prowess. Until I met you. You have so much promise, Will. In so many areas.”

Given Hannibal’s exterior of composure and style, feeling the bulge in his briefs seemed like a victory. “You’re not afraid I’ll start seeing killers in every shadow?”

“And in the light too.” The smile was brighter now. “I find it makes life much more interesting. And speaking of mutual interests, perhaps I should divest myself of these clothes.”

Will lay back on the bed, half-watching Hannibal disrobe. The room had become more familiar to him than his dorm recently, even though so many aspects of it still suggested he didn’t belong.

“What would happen,” he asked, turning his head, “if I didn’t want to have sex with you anymore?”

Hannibal’s expression was, as it ever was, completely untroubled. “I imagine that you wouldn’t have sex with me anymore.”

“And the grant?”

“The grant is dependent on academic achievement, nothing more.” Nude, Hannibal seemed far more formidable than he ever did clothed. But he sat and bent down to kiss Will, stroking a hand down from sternum to navel. “However, I would miss you a great deal.”

He felt curiously safe lying face-down on Hannibal’s bed, smelling Hannibal’s cologne among the pillows and linens, feeling Hannibal’s warmth and weight above him. How many people died during sex? Plenty, with nothing unnatural involved. Heart attacks. Aneurysms. Not a bad way to die, wrapped in comfort, being made to feel pleasure no matter where your mind drifted to. But it would be easy to slit your partner’s throat like this too. Hannibal would only need to pull up on his hair, reach for one of those sharp-as-death kitchen knives, and he’d never even feel the cut. But that would be a mess, his blood pumping out a stain that might reach the edges of the bed, drip down the sides to the lush carpet. Hannibal would never be so sloppy.

“Pull my hair,” Will said.

“Excuse me?”

Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, to speak. It had made Hannibal pause, the growing warmth in Will’s groin ebbing away too quickly without stimulation. “Pull on my hair,” he said, beginning to feel embarrassed instead of aroused. “And fuck me harder.”

He expected Hannibal to say any number of things – “I don’t want to hurt you, Will,” “let’s talk about this next time” – but Hannibal’s hand pressed to his scalp and took a fistful of his hair, his thrusts beginning again. Will’s head was jerked back, his throat exposed, back arched.

It _hurt_ , the tug on his hair, his breathing forcibly ragged, his stiff cock pressed hard against what wasn’t the softest mattress, and Hannibal fucking the very air out of him. Will closed his eyes, held his breath, and came in a shudder that hurt even more. 

A few minutes later, Hannibal flipped him over and fucked him again. Will settled back against the pillows and let it all happen. What would it be like to look up at your killer like this? To feel utterly helpless, his hands around your throat, and know you’d never see anything but him again? And still to feel that pleasure from a body that didn’t yet know its fate but loved the pressure of Hannibal thick inside it, the rub over a sensitive prostate, the inevitable ecstasy of ejaculation.

“If you’re ever going to kill me,” Will said afterward, when Hannibal had cleaned them both up and the lights were off, “do it like that.”

Hannibal chuckled against the back of his neck. “Dear Will. I’d never harm a hair on your head.”

Will pulled his arm closer, eyes open in the dark.


End file.
